Laptop Screen Repaired!

Just finished replacing T's laptop screen - someone evidently sat on it whilst it was snuggled away on top of a beanbag seat - and it was easier than I expected.

Had a great experience ordering from SCREENAID - try them out if you need a laptop screen fix - cost me a hundred bucks.



Of course, I'm a DIY sort of guy - no instructions specific to the model laptop but it was fairly obvious how to replace it. I will say a credit card edge is one of the best tools for splitting the snap edges without scratching the plastic case of the laptop.

And small screws require a towel to keep them from bouncing when they fall. It took 10 minute to find one very specifically small and unique screw that bounced into a crack on the floor!

Perfect day

If you are a duck. Makes me want to stay home and listen to The Cure!

What I Did This Weekend

I had a no phone weekend and was able to get a few things together, catch up on sleep (sleeping when one wants with no obligation to daylight or schedules is a wonderful thing!), and read C. S. Freidman's Feast of Souls. I enjoyed the book but not quite as much as her other Coldfire series. The ideas and concepts of magic were somewhat related in both books; magic being a thing of thoughts and spirit, tied to our souls.

So, although enjoyable, I didn't think this book as complex as the Coldfire series, and without noting anything of the plot or approach, give this a "good weekend reader" and a "warily bought the second book in the series". I'll journal if it improves!

I'm of one mind on this decision...

Watched Jekyll on Netflix and have to say I really enjoyed it. It was different that expected, had it's weaknesses in acting and development of characters, but on the whole very enjoyable flight of fancy.

Recommended MP3 Cleanup: MusicBrainz Picard

Having several computer systems, in the inevitable process of moving music content from one computer to another, ripping on one computer, and pulling them into one library, managing things sometimes get confusing. That includes using different music managers that have different capabilities for managing MP3 tags metadata.



I've found MusicBrainz Picard to be very useful for auto scanning, fixing, and identifying tracks. It it also multiplatform - important to me as I use several different operating systems and several versions of those operating systems.

Really Enjoyed Her Voice

Found what is to me a new sound - maybe you've heard her before - like her voice and the sound arrangements too!

Natly Dawn on YouTube

Pomplamoose Music has a few of her other tunes. I like her cover of "Telephone" too. Check them out via http://www.youtube.com/user/PomplamooseMusic

Urgent Security Hole?

I started up my Windows XP operating system for some testing, Firefox updated and warned me to update my Adobe Flash immediately. Had their own splash page with the notification that "You should update Adobe Flash Player right now".

If you click it goes to Adobe's download page where it automatically has selected to download McAfee's virus tools. Unchecking that and continuing on (no, that isn't part of an update, thank-you-very-much) and then it requires that you install their plug-in to update. There are plenty of _older_ versions that linked directly to the download if any failures, but no longer; you can't download the installer directly from those pages.

So screw them; I've uninstalled Adobe's products (Flash, Macromedia, and Acrobat) from my MS Windows image. I still use a 3rd party PDF viewer.

The only thing I miss is I did like the Fligo screen saver that needed Flash. The rest of the websites, although they indicate they need Flash, really don't - most of the functions have been banner checks, Instant Messenger functions, or "you've got mail" notifications.

The only other site I use that might need it is YouTube, as the Firefox stable versions don't support HTML5 unless you use the nightlies (firefox-3.7a5pre.en-US.win32.zip), so I guess I'll get the nightly for use on YouTube, and keep the stable version for all my plug-ins.

I imagine Adobe is doing this for their best interest, but as and end-user, I say "screw you for screwing me". You should at least make the barrier to entry (that is, acquiring your software) as low as possible, if you want it used. Based on the hope that we don't need Flash in the near future, keep on pissing on your users, and we'll go on to something else.